Maritime Accidents: Going Down in History Quiz

On November 25, 1120, 17-year-old William Adelin, Henry I's only legitimate son and heir was returning to England from a trip to France, where he and his father paid homage to King Louis VI. King Henry's ship departed first. William Adelin and about 300 people from the English aristocracy followed in a second vessel, the "White Ship", which sank. Some sources say that the causes of the accident are unknown and others say that the young people started drinking and that they were accompanied by the crew and when the White Ship launched after dark, the crew rowed as fast as possible to reach the king's ship but went straight into a rock offshore. The ship began to sink and only one person survived the disaster.

The sinking of the White Ship, in addition to being a personal tragedy for the families involved, caused a political disaster as it generated the succession crisis and civil war, a period known as "The Anarchy". This fact, which occurred over 900 years ago, continues to show how one tragic event can change the course of history.

The seventeenth-century English sailing ship the "Sea Venture" was the flagship of a seven-ship fleet (towing two additional pinnacles) destined to take settlers and supplies to Jamestown, Virginia, as part of the "Third Supply" mission, with the goal to rescue the failing settlement. The Sea Venture was specially built for the purpose, she was the largest ship in the squadron and carried a large proportion of the supplies destined for the colony. On July 28, 1609, during a storm the ship separated from the fleet and to prevent her sinking, Admiral George Somers headed the ship directly onto the reefs at Discovery Bay, eastern Bermuda. Around 150 people were saved but the ship was wrecked.

Over the next nine months, despite much disagreement, the survivors, using local wood and the ship's remains, built two pinnacles: "Deliverance" and "Patience"; these boats docked at the Jamestown settlement, Virginia, on 23rd May 1610, where they found the colony decaying. It was a period of significant disagreement and misadventure that is believed to have inspired William Shakespeare's "The Tempest". The author would have based his plot on the narratives of survivors and on the work of historian and author William Strachey (1572-1621), and eye-witness reports of Sea Venture's shipwrecking.

The "SS Sultana" was a commercial side-wheel steamboat, launched in 1863, intended initially for the lower Mississippi cotton trade. For two years she made the regular route between St. Louis and New Orleans and was frequently chartered to carry troops during the American Civil War. When the war ended, war prisoners wanted to return to the North quickly, so the Union paid steamship operators to transport them. This practice led to corruption, neglect of transport safety, and overcrowding. The Sultana could carry 356 passengers but she left Vicksburg on April 24, 1865, with over 2,000 people, the majority consisting of soldiers released from the Confederate prisons who were on their way home.

On April 27, 1865, the Sultana was sailing on the Mississippi River north of Memphis, Tennessee, when this steamer exploded and burned. The exact death toll is unknown but according to the United States Customs 1,547 people died. Surveys reveal that about 961 people survived. Although this was the deadliest marine accident in the United States, it was overshadowed in the press due to the coverage on April 15, 1865, of President Lincoln's assassination.

The accident that became known as the "Halifax Explosion" occurred on the morning of December 6, 1917, a sunny Saturday, in which the French cargo ship "SS Mont-Blanc" collided with the Norwegian vessel "SS Imo", in the waters of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

The SS Imo was in the service of the "Commission for Relief in Belgium", sailing on its way to New York, transporting medical aid material. She was refueled in Halifax and was leaving port when the collision occurred. The SS Mont Blanc was under orders from the French government to carry her cargo from New York City, via Halifax, to Bordeaux, France. The boat was fully loaded with explosives (TNT and picric acid), the highly flammable fuel benzene, and guncotton. When the collision occurred, Imo's superstructure was damaged, but she was later repaired and sailed again. In the collision, the barrels, which were in the Mont Blanc, opened and the benzene quickly flowed into the ship with the fire reaching its explosive load. When the ship exploded a powerful blast wave radiated away and hit the port and the city. About 2000 people died, and more than 9,000 were injured by the explosion, fire, and debris, thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed or damaged. The accident was considered the largest man-made explosion in history up to Hiroshima.

"MV Wilhelm Gustloff", a German ocean liner, was launched in 1939 to provide recreational and cultural activities for German officials and workers, aiming to improve the image of the Third Reich. Later. When she became part of Operation Hannibal, a massive effort to evacuate civilians, military personnel, and equipment from East and West Prussia. The official list of people on board on this last trip contains the names of 6,500 people, but there were numerous people who boarded and who were not on the records.

On January 30, 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff was hit by three torpedoes, launched by the Soviet submarine S-13, and sank in about one hour. German forces managed to save 1,239 people out of the total of around 10,000 on board. This remains the largest loss of life at sea in a single vessel.

The "USS Indianapolis" was a Portland-class heavy cruiser launched in 1931, she had numerous missions, participating in several battles across the Central Pacific during World War II. In 1945, she was given a top-secret mission to head to Tinian Naval Base, Asia, with enriched uranium and parts needed to assemble the "Little Boy" atomic bomb. On July 26, 1945, she delivered her cargo and proceeded to the Philippines on training duty.

The ship was torpedoed, on July 30, 1945, by the Imperial Japanese Navy submarine and sank in 12 minutes. Many crew members went down with the vessel, others did not survive dehydration or shark attacks, and only 316 of the 1,195 crewmen aboard survived. This sinking resulted in the greatest loss of life at sea in a single ship of the US Navy. If this attack had occurred when she was carrying her initial cargo, perhaps the history of World War II would have been different.

On July 19, 1979, in heavy rain and thick fog, the Greek oil tanker "Atlantic Empress" collided with the fully laden Greek supertanker "Aegean Captain", in the Caribbean Sea. The Atlantic Empress and part of the Aegean Captain went up in flames. Altogether 26 sailors were killed on the Empress and one crew member died on the Aegean Captain.

The Aegean Captain managed to control the fire aboard the ship and was taken to the Port of Curaįao and most of her cargo was saved. However, the Atlantic Empress burned for about 14 days, suffered several explosions, and finally sank spilling 287,000 metric tons of crude oil into the Caribbean Sea. Luckily the oil disappeared without reaching the beaches, but it is not known how much was burned and how much was dispersed.

In the Philippines, a country made up of thousands of islands, maritime traffic plays a fundamental role in the lives of citizens and in the country's economy. On the morning of December 20, 1987, the passenger ferry "MV Doņa Paz" left Leyte Island, Philippines, bound for Manila with about 4,300 passengers (more than double the ship's official capacity and most not listed on the official manifest), who wanted to enjoy the Christmas holidays.

On the same day at 10:30 PM, along the Tablas Strait, the Doņa Paz collided with the oil tanker "MT Vector" en route from Bataan to Masbate. Vector was carrying 1,041 tons of gasoline and other petroleum products. Upon collision, Vector's cargo ignited causing a fire on the ship, spilled into the water, and spread to Doņa Paz, which sank in a few hours. It is estimated 4,000 died, and only 27 people survived the accident, 25 from the MV Doņa Paz, and 2 of the 13 crew members aboard Vector. This is considered the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history.

"MV Le Joola" was a roll-on/roll-off ferry, owned by the Senegalese government, with a capacity for 536 passengers, 44 crew, and 35 cars. Le Joola made the Ziguinchor route, located on the banks of the Casamance River, in the Casamance region en route to Dakar, the Senegalese capital. Le Joola was carrying almost two thousand passengers aboard, almost four times the ship's capacity.

Le Joola capsized and sank in rough seas on September 26, 2002, off the Zambia coast. In the accident, 1,863 people died and 64 survived. The investigations concluded that there were indeed strong winds, but that the accident was the result of overcrowding and that Le Joola was not within the safety standards in terms of navigability, and therefore should not be operating. The Le Joola accident was the second-worst civilian maritime disaster in world history.

The "Costa Concordia" was an Italian passenger liner that made her maiden voyage in 2006. She was the first in the Concordia Class sistering four other cruise ships. The ship was performing a seven-day cruise; she departed from Civitavecchia for a cruise up the coast to Savona, with a capacity of 3,206 passengers and 1023 crew. On the night of January 13, 2012, Costa Concordia struck her starboard side on the underwater reef near the island of Isola del Giglio, in the Tyrrhenian Sea. According to the person responsible for the Captaincy, the ship's commander maneuvered to approach the cruise to the island of Giglio (changing the original route) causing the collision with a reef and causing the ship's sinking. Witnesses say the commander intended to salute the islanders.

After the collision, the ship lost its propulsive power, and a 60-meter-long cut occurred in the ship's hull, causing the compartments to flood. The ship was tilted at an angle of 80°. The ship's evacuation order took a while to be given and was issued by the first mate since the captain was one of the first to abandon ship and did not comply with the orders of the Captain of the Coast Guard, who famously told him in no uncertain terms to get back on board his ship. Thirty-two people died in the accident. The rescue of the Costa Concordia was one of the biggest in history. In addition to the rescue of around 4,200 people, there was a very delicate operation to remove 2,000 tons of fuel from the ship and finally the removal of the ship itself, which was towed to Genoa, Italy, where it was dismantled.